The Devil's Door Read Free Page B

gelagu.

    And still my mind wanders within me my spirit with the tide across the whale road, wanders far upon the earth’s surface, and comes back to me eager and greedy, the lone flier calls, inciting the unwary heart on to the whale road and across the wide sea.
    —The Seafarer 11.58—64

    A s the boat jolted against the sand, people began spilling out, wading or flopping to shore. Some fell to their knees as soon as they reached the waterline; others lay face down, kissing the salty earth. A tall, gaunt knight wobbled on sea legs as far as the rocks and gave one last retch before collapsing. Only one man stayed with the oarsmen and helped them drag the boat and its cargo onto the beach. He lifted out his precious oilskin satchel of books, gave each man an English farthing, and walked steadily across the sand.
    The sailor bit his quartered coin, dropped it in his purse and grinned at his companion.
    “Clerk he may be now,” he said, “but that one’s forefathers knew the whale road, I’ll swear to it.”
    “More Norse than Norman, for all his fine Latin and French,” the other agreed. “If I hadn’t known it by his hair, I’d have been sure the moment I saw him downing ale and salt herring below deck in a full gale.”
    They laughed and belched at the memory, then tossed out the belongings of the other passengers and then, shuddering from the cold, swam the boat out past the breakers. They hoisted themselves aboard and rowed back to the ship, ready to sail on for Boulogne when the tide turned.
    Edgar didn’t look back as he left the channel behind him and strode inland to the village. He paid no attention to his fellow passengers, either. They had spent most of the trip moaning and praying. His excellent health and obvious enjoyment of the rolling of the ship had not endeared himself to them. He shifted the books to his other shoulder and felt once again for the roll of cloth tied about his waist. Sewn in it were thirty bezants, pure gold. Apart from the books, they were his entire fortune. He wondered how his brother, Egbert, had come by them. Like many things concerning his brother’s activities, it was better not to know. They were his now, honestly acquired, a bride-price to prove his worth to Catherine’s father, a merchant more impressed by ability and moveable wealth than lineage, especially when the lineage consisted of land in a country at the northern end of the world and a claim to a title usurped by the Norman invaders three generations ago.
    He fixed his thoughts inland, down through Flanders and Picardy to the edge of Champagne, to the Paraclete, where, he prayed, Catherine still waited for him. He had been gone less than four months, from Paris to Scotland and back again, resenting every moment wasted in waiting for tides or safe passage through the war in England. There had been no time to send or receive word, but he refused even to consider that she had changed her decision. His step quickened. His father had raged at his plans and his stepmother had warned him against competing with God for a woman’s affections. But he had placed his faith in Catherine, in the promise she had given him, and, yes, in the certainty that the intense need he felt to be with her was returned.
    Thinking of Catherine made him feel more wobbly than any ship could and he had an intense need for a long gulp of beer or even the sharp pear cider they fermented in Picardy. Edgar was glad to see the roofs of the town of Saint-Valéry and to remember that hard by the church was a fine inn which specialized in slaking the thirst of wandering scholars and pilgrims.
    The inn was ancient, the dirt floor swept down well below the level of the street. Edgar could imagine Roman soldiers sitting at these same plank tables and speculating on the chances of invading Britain. He knew that soldiers of William of Normandy had drunk there seventy-five years ago, waiting for the order for their own invasion of England. But the soup